The Perfect Weapon Ending 2 Part 1 Section 3

[camillecarelli]

Wait, she had seen something about that in these notes. So long ago, these notes, written before everyone had personal computers on their desk. Where had the time gone? She shook her head. But, it was comforting, really, to see Dave's handwriting, to see him in that clear script. To see him in her mind's eye, sitting at their kitchen table or keeping score for a card game, plinking a pen or pencil on a page. But where was it... Flipping the pages, she stopped when she saw her name in a rambling passage on a stray note. There....

Jack was wrong, I belong in field ops, not therapy. I would have been a failure. She is my greatest failure. I thought that meddling, as she called it, had been a success. Because of the changes... But that woman. Irina Derevko. Not Laura Bristow. How could I not see through her to the... what was it that lay beneath that facade? That woman I thought adored Jack, loved Sydney, wanted their life together. Who was she? Really?

Dave had asked that question before, in that conversation he had created and finished with the best of intentions, out of love.

"I'm doing this because I love you both. If Jack is like a brother to me, that would make you my sister-in-law."

"Jack will always come first, though," she had pouted, joking. But the truth was in the humor.

"I...yes. Although the truth is, I've told him truths too. Told him to open up more with you. Because it will not only make him happier. But because you deserve it as well."

"Because you love me too?" She had asked, pushing down her knowledge that she had needed Dave too. His friendship, his love. After a life spent without... love and friendship, always in a competition.. This life she led -- this false life that had become, every day more and more real, as real as the slam of the screen door and the squeak of the glider she had heard on that journey to this life -- this life gave her not only Jack, but people like Dave.

"Yes, I love you enough to tell you the truth."

"Even when I don't want to hear it?"

"Especially then." Dave had looked at her, nodding, put his hand over hers. She had squeezed it back, glad of its warmth against the coldness of her fingertips. Glad of Dave. "You do know I'll always be here for you, if you need it."

"Because..." she sighed again, smiling, needing to hear it. "You love me." 
"Yes, I do. That's why I want you to be honest with yourself. To look in a mirror. Decide who you want to be. To yourself. To Jack. Think about it," he had said as he had put his hand on the doorknob and twisted it, "Or better yet, feel it, let your heart guide you."

"And if I don't?" She had asked, still not wanting to confront herself.

"Then you may make a fatal error. Don't do it." He had cautioned quietly, but the intensity of his gaze made his words impossible to ignore. His knowledge of Jack equally impossible to ignore. She fought to keep her panic from showing. Her mission, her marriage were in danger. Mission and marriage, so inescapably intertwined that in her error of judgment -- being herself -- that had led her to such success professionally and personally that she had at times become lost. Where did one end and the other begin? Mission and marriage... Dave knew he was warning her about the latter, not knowing about the former. But then he had continued, interrupting her thoughts. "I know you can make the right choices. Good luck, Laura..." He had leaned forward, kissed her cheek. She had put her hand to her face, feeling the slight warmth his lips had left. Who had kissed her like that besides Jack? Just a gentle touch, expressing love in a farewell, she thought, as he left, closing the door behind him.

She closed her eyes. Dave had loved her, Jack whom he loved like a brother, a brother of the heart. Loved enough to meddle... although that was not precisely true. Jack and Dave were both inveterate meddlers, especially with those they loved. Remembered suddenly that discussion between Jack and Dave about the reading for the wedding. Jack debating about which translation to use, the one that ended, "Love never ends. Or the other, "Love never fails."

Dave, Dave had never failed them. She had been foolish to avoid this memory of Dave's endless, relentless pursuit of the truth. Dave would not fail her. She just needed to remember....

Dave would not fail her. She just needed to remember....

Her eyes flickered open. Good, that had been a good memory. Dave had loved her. He had. That was a good memory. A good one. She didn't have to carry this memory all the way to the end. Stopping right here was the best idea, it gave her a comforting memory, that love of Dave's, so pure ...That was all she needed to remember, the love. That was all she needed right now, too, she was sure. The love.

Then her eyes flickered down to continue, coming to rest upon a note with one of the earliest dates in the entire thick batch of papers. And stopped dead.

Burns, Robert Burns had been wrong.

O, wad some Power the giftie gie us 
To see oursels as others see us!

This was no gift. Those words beneath her fingers.

She frantically ran her fingertip on the page, rubbed it back and forth over the words as if she could erase them.

I'd like to kill her. That b****. That lying, deceitful whore.

She reeled back in shock. One of the greatest shocks in her life, she knew. The coldness rolled over her in a wave, starting from the center of her, spreading over her back, then up and over her shoulders, then down, down until her legs began to tremble. No, no, she would not fall. No, this could not be. Dave... Dave had loved her like a sister. He... no, those words... He could not have... No. Not Dave. 
Yes, Dave. Dave who told the truth as he saw it. Then. Now.

She willfully ruined the life of the best man I know. Worst of all, I... think she did love him. She loved him and left him. That is what is inexcusable. She loved and left, left knowing about his trust issues. Knowing, but no. Probably she convinced herself that. Oh, who cares? The result is what matters. The result, seeing the loss of human potential, the pain. Such a deep wound for anyone, but for Jack... the worst possible wound, nearly fatal if not for his own reserves of strength, if not for Sydney. If that woman weren't already dead, then I'd track her down and kill her myself.

She closed her eyes, but she still saw the words dancing around in her head. One word above all others guaranteed to send her spinning into the abyss of the memory she had tried for nearly thirty years to forget. Had told herself she had learned a lesson, made a resolution, changed, given Jack so much, that she did not need to remember the memory. That Jack's love the night of the jewelry had forever changed her view of herself. But this sent her right back---

Whore

"NO!" she exclaimed, hearing the word echoing around the room, making her eardrums pound.

She saw the word, disbelievingly she saw the word. In Dave's handwriting. In deep, dark letters as if he had been pounding the pen into the page.

That b****, that lying whore.

"Noooo," she moaned. "Not Dave. Dave had not seen her, I mean me, like that. Not that, not that."

Hearing her from his post inside the bathroom doorway, Jack winced. Forced himself to stay still.. He knew what she must be reading. Dave's earliest notes, when he had been trying to piece it all out, trying to understand the inexplicable, trying to understand why someone would leave love behind, had not been kind. Dave's words had been terribly harsh, surprising him with their ruthlessness. Painful to read. Jack knew that part of the pain of those words arose not only from Dave's empathy, but also from his misplaced guilt, his belief that he had done something, something Jack might never know, something Dave had run out of time to tell him about, some conversation he had guessed while reading as much of that file as he could on the way to Panama, some conversation that had inadvertently assisted Laura... No, it was assisted Irina in becoming Laura. But those words in that file in Dave's own handwriting must be devastating.... He would rather she had never read them, seen them, thought them.

But he hoped, with his last bit of hope, that the words of a third party reach her when his had seemingly failed. Would it make any difference to see herself as another had? She had the courage, he knew it, deep within, had seen it that night of the jewelry. Rather, had seen merely a glimpse of it, in her hand pleating that sari fabric as she allowed herself to be exposed. Allowed her fear -- one of her deepest fears, he would realize many years later-- to be swamped by her desire to give him something she thought he wanted. And in so doing, she had discovered how he had truly seen her.

So, would Dave's words help her find her courage? Or would it merely send her deeper into denial? Would they cleanse or merely make her seek cover?

She shook her head. No, she would not think of this, she would misdirect herself. This was too much, more than she had bargained... No, she would think of a good memory. Yes, this would work. The night of the jewelry, when she had thought he wanted a whore and he had told her, shown her, he wanted the opposite. That he had seen her as a queen, as a strong... Yes. She would be strong now. She had been strong for so long, through so much. She could do it now.

Surely there was another memory... Yes, another one of her favorites, she pulled it up from the recesses of her mind, the night Jack had proposed. Yes. Yes. Remember that poem he had read to her.... Byron. Byron, that was it. And she had recited back to him... What was it? It was by Robert Burns. The... No. No. That had been Jack joking. No.......

O, wad some Power the giftie gie us 
To see oursels as others see us! 
It wad frae monie a blunder free us

Burns had been wrong. That poem, "The Louse".... Damn it! She was stuck in a loop, in one of Jack's damnable circles. She had to get out of it. Out of this trap. This... hall of mirrors. No, no, not the mirrors. This reflection....

This was not a gift to see yourself as others see you. How did it free you?

No. That word trapped her. She stared at herself, seeing the shock in her eyes, seeing the truth behind the shock, a truth she had faced nearly thirty years before. Not again. Not again. "No," she whispered, over and over. "No, no, no."

Then she felt a wave of heat wash over her, making her stomach cramp. Looking around wildly for a wastebasket, she noted its location near the table. The table where the Rambaldi heart document lay, so safe, so innocuous. Why hadn't she made that choice? Not this one, not this document that trembled in her hand as she looked down at it, her eyes drawn involuntarily to the slash of words, the black on white.

Ruin... Inexcusable... Potential.. Kill her myself

And that other word. How dare he? How dare he? Call her whore? How dare he?

"NO!" She called out again and in fury, struck the mirror with her fist. Saw a crack appear high in the upper left hand corner. Banged on it again, wanting, needing to shake it loose. Reached up and with trembling fingers, pried loose the small chink. But not too small, she thought, holding it in her hands. This small chink was all that was needed to ruin this mirror. This mirror, she thought, looking back up reluctantly, that showed the truth. Just as a mirror had shown her a hard truth almost thirty years before.

But...what was worse, she knew, she knew, was to see the truth in your own eyes. She looked up at the mirror, then looked away, remembered that time she had seen her own shattered face looking at her from the mirror. After Dave had left. When she was alone. With her own conscience. Finding she had one. With her own reality. Finding that she did not like it and needed to make a new reality.

Och, that we had the gift to see ourselves as others see us.

Whore

She began to breathe raggedly as the very walls seemed to echo with the word. Looked around wildly, feeling trapped. Needing to escape. Escape this prison that... She looked around again. The walls were closing in on her. This was... she heaved a breath, then a second, as she dropped the paper and went desperately over to the window and looked out. Leaning her head against the glass, she told herself that she was not going to vomit as she had the last time she had seen this word in her own eyes twenty years before. This was ridiculous. Get control. But then a sob burst out. No, she could not do this. She had to get control. She had... to... Find a way out. From this trap. Of a truth. Not the whole truth, surely, surely. But...

Then you may make a fatal error. Don't do it.

Turning around, she walked over to the bureau, then looked for her clothes. Where were her clothes? She could be naked any longer. When had she become naked? All night with Jack, she had not felt naked. But now, she was... what was the correct word? She needed the correct word! She was... exposed, that was it.

Exposed, she decided as she turned around again and stopped as she caught sight of her face in the mirror, illumined by the new morning light slanting through the draperies. The light that seemed so unforgiving of any imperfections, she had always thought, looking carefully in the mirror. Stopping, she looked in shock.

Something died as she looked in the mirror. Was it the pretense? The lies? The self-deception. The veil she had worn ever since the morning after the day she had flushed away Forever and a day, when getting up from a bed her soul did not want to be in, she had gotten up, gone into a bathroom, seen her face, seen what she had become and had vomited. Again. And ever since, for so long, she had looked in the mirror... dimly.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face

Those words, part of the reading from their wedding that Jack had chosen, to which she had never listened properly. Or perhaps, not listened deeply enough. For now, looking deeply into her face, her eyes, she saw the truth.

No. No. No..

"NO!" She called out to her own reflection. A truth she did not want to see, could not face. She sat down on the bed, facing away from the mirror.

Then you may make a fatal error. Don't do it.

She clapped a hand over her mouth, or started to, realizing almost too late that she still held that chink from the mirror. How foolish, she had forgotten what she held in her hand and had almost cut herself wide open. A nice scar that would have been, right on her face. But as she knew, rubbing her stomach that had such a deep ache, the deepest wounds lay within. As Jack knew, she stared at the portfolio lying next to her on the bed, as Jack knew all too well.

Wound

The glint of the light from the window hit the jagged edge of the shard in her hand and with a twist of pain she remembered that last memory, that last result of Dave's visit. But I don't want to, she wanted to moan.

Then you may make a fatal error. Don't do it.

"I surrender," she whispered. Knowing that the choice of the portfolio had led her to this moment she had been avoiding, had tried to forget for almost thirty years. She gave up, gave into it, that memory. Hoping... Was that hope? She nodded slowly, acknowledging it. She was hoping that this surrender would lead to strength, as it had the last time or rather the first time, when she had lived through this. She turned the slice of silver in her hand and watched it sparkle in the light, almost as if it weren't a broken piece of nothing. 
The sparkle on her hand. The sparkle, changing colors in the sunlight as her hand moved. Rhythmically moved, trying to find a way out, trying to calm herself, trying to find... Who knew what?

After Dave had left, she had sat back down with a thud on the couch, twisting her rings on her hand. The same couch where the night of that stupid game, she swallowed hard, she had...

Then, now, she heard Dave's voice, his words of caution.

Then you may make a fatal error. Don't do it.

Knowing, as she bit her lip that she had just been given a gift. Her training, her knowledge, her ability to play a game all told her that she had been given an amazing insight into Jack, into her target, her mission. Her instincts, she rubbed her stomach, the instincts of a woman told her that she had made a nearly fatal error the other night with that stupid game. And worse yet, afterwards, on the couch, she had compounded it. Both personally and professionally by allowing her fear to govern her.

Didn't she know, hadn't she been trained, that fear should not govern your behavior?

But that night, she had made that mistake. Personally, professionally. After everyone had left... After an evening in which she had felt a loosening of the connection between them, something far more serious than any argument, something far deeper... She had used her, oh god, training to try and distract Jack, try to find that connection that instinct had told her she had lost that night. She had... He had not liked it. Had wanted them to experience it, making love, together or not at all. He had sensed something. He had sensed... was it that she was not being herself? Or that she was not being what he wanted? Or...This made no sense, she had thought at the time. Didn't all men want a woman who just gave them what they wanted?

Not then. Not now either, she realized as she remembered his rejection in the bathroom when she had tried to rouse desire in him, when he had wanted... Just like the night of that stupid game, when she had almost severed the connection of trust, this morning he had wanted to find it again. That was what he had truly wanted to find. Together. And what had she done?

Then you may make a fatal error. Don't do it.

Now she groaned as looking down at her hands she caught a glimpse of the side of her face, then the base of her throat, then the corner of her eye in the spot of mirror in her hands. She had not realized it then, not realized it until the night of the jewelry. Jack had just wanted her to be... Her self. No, that was wrong too. He wanted her to be...

Then she had put her head in her hands. Her head ached, but her hands were trembling and... Dave... Dave had, she admitted it, scared her with his talk of fatal mistakes and warnings about her relationship with Jack. What if he were right? What if she did not pay more attention, what if... If her marriage failed, then her mission failed. If her marriage failed, then she would be alone again. If her marriage failed, if one day Jack looked at her and wondered who she was, then who was she? Laura? Irina? Some combination? Who did she want to be? Who did she have to be? She had put her hands on her lap, twisted her rings around and around with her right hand. Her hands were too big. They didn't fit....

Her best self? Was that it? Her best self. And what was that? And what would she have to sacrifice? What would she gain?

Haltingly, she had gotten up, went to the phone, watched her hand dial the old rotary-style phone as if the fingers belonged to someone else. Had automatically spoken words as she called in sick to work. Slowly she went upstairs and sat on their bed. Now she had made the lie the truth. She did feel sick. She bent over at the waist, her hand clutching the bedspread. Running her hand absently across the cover, over and over and over.

Then she firmed her jaw. This was ridiculous. Dave was... Jack was... Jack was fine. He loved her and she him and.... They would be fine. He would forgive her that error of judgment about the falling game. He loved her. He would forgive her. He already had. If you loved someone, you forgave them, didn't you?

Then she had been so certain. Now... Time and silence had given the cuts a chance to fester, just as a wound never uncovered to sunlight and fresh air would never heal. She absently ruffled her fingertips through the portfolio.

The truth is I can't forgive myself. Will I ever? But the more important truth or rather question is, can Jack forgive? Ever? Should he? How would he?

The truth is, Irina thought as she clutched the papers to her chest as if they were a lifeline, a painful lifeline. The truth is... she had been a fool then to think forgiveness could come so cheaply. Then she had discovered that she would have to give of herself to achieve it. What would she have to give now? What would she find when she looked for that answer?

Then, she stared at herself in the mirror. Like a ghost in the sunlight streaming in through the sheer white curtains, she saw... But who saw a ghost in sunlight? She shook her head. Jack... she saw him behind her in the mirror that first night together. Saw the happiness in his face, her face. Heard her voice say, "We look perfect together."

Not we are perfect together. But, "We look perfect together." Because... was it all an illusion built on her lies? What if she wanted to make that illusion real? What if she wanted to make that chimera substantial?

But who, she had wondered, was the ghost?

Him. Her. Or.. Who they were together? Was that what was so insubstantial, the merest shadow of sheer white curtains on a white wall?

Now, she wondered the same. Was that what the night had been? Two ghosts visiting? The Laura that was returning from a watery grave to visit the Jack that had found his way out of a pit of despair? Or could they find a new life?

What if....

She slammed her hand on the bedspread. The plain tan bedspread in a plain white room with plain wooden furniture. Sterile. No babies, she thought abruptly. No babies. Her hand made a fist. Watching her hand stroke the bed cover, she had looked at the rings on her finger, remembered how Jack had had commissioned the same artisan who had created her waist chain in some godforsaken country create them. How he had actually manipulated a mission in order to meet with the artisan -- something she knew from the bugs she had planted on him. How she had thought it was one more attribute they shared, mixing the personal and the professional. She smiled as she looked at the rings, with the endless loop saying, "Forever and a day." The white sparkle of the three diamonds catching the light from the windows and reflecting it in a quick glint into the mirror, catching her eye, forcing her to look up and outward.

Then inward as the curtains shifted in the breeze from the east as it hit the back of the house, the curtains parting to let in a straight, unobstructed shaft of bright, merciless sunlight. 
She looked in the mirror. Saw the truth as if a veil had been ripped from her eyes.

For the first time, she acknowledged fully two truths. She, her case officer, Cuvee, could call it whatever they wanted, but she had entered into this operation planning to use her body to seduce an agent and obtain secrets. What she was doing was whoring for her country. Irina... was a whore. Then she had put her hand up to her face in the mirror, searching...Knowing that without love, that woman in the mirror was a whore. A plain word. A simple word. A word of one syllable. One harsh little syllable. One simple word of truth. Whore. She said it to herself. Winced. The truth hurt. That one did anyway.

But that was not the only truth. Or at least that was how it had begun. Somehow, someway, she had been lucky enough to meet Jack and within moments of meeting him had begun to forget the origins of their relationship. The game they were playing had become truth for her, the illusion was as real for her as it was for him. Love had saved her, saved her soul, if she believed in one. Laura was beloved. That was the second truth. Laura was not a whore, Laura was beloved.

She wanted to be Laura. She wanted that...love, the never-ending love, the deep love that would sustain a life time. She wanted that glider that squeaked, that door that slammed. She wanted Jack to love her forever, as the words in her ring promised. If she wanted that love, then... she would have to give it.

And... She turned that shard over and over in her hands. She had given to him. And he back to her. And together they had given each other a beautiful daughter. The future.

But only for a time. And therein lay the mistake. You could not put a time limit on love. You could not promise forever and give ten years. In the end, you could not ignore the truths in front of you.

Dave was right, she thought looking around the bedroom. Jack would feel better in a house with color. Maybe a fireplace somewhere? Then getting up from the bed, she trailed her hand along the white walls of their house as she walked around it slowly, seeing it as if for the first time. The white was boring. Cold. Now that she looked at it, she didn't like it either. They needed color. Maybe red for the dining room like that restaurant. Blue somewhere, that was Jack's favorite color. Yes, she could do that, give him something he wanted, needed, that he didn't even know he needed. That would be a gift. And... their bedroom needed something intense yet... Something with a feminine touch. He would like that, something that combined the two of them. Not that she wasn't aggressive herself...Wait.

She had been blind. Jack liked it when she made the first move, was even the slightest bit aggressive, it made him... But she had always liked to make the first move, then have him take control. Because she did not want the control, the responsibility, the role of... In her mind she had associated taking control with deceit rather than honest desire, had associated responsibility with the role of a whore, who knew exactly what she was doing and why. And when Jack took control. No wonder he could not let go, find.. What was it Dave had said? Freedom. How could you find true freedom when you had to have control for both.... And the key to Jack was his sexuality, she knew that. Had always known that. Or perhaps the key to understanding him lay in his sexuality, those moments that gave a glimpse of the man he kept hidden. But she had ignored it, not wanting to take responsibility for their sex life because it tapped into one of her deepest, most deeply-buried fears, that of being merely a...

She forced herself to look into the mirror again, knowing what she would see. But it was worse. It was worse than the sight of a whore. It was the sight of a shattered soul looking back at her. A woman who had, it was true, taken more than she had given. In the reflection she saw the sheen of perspiration on her forehead, felt the nausea bubble in her stomach. Acknowledged the guilt that she had been taught not to feel, not to even admit to herself. Admitted that the rules she had been taught had been good rules. Don't fall in love, don't get lost in the game. Good rules designed to protect oneself from... this pain she felt as she looked at herself in the mirror. 
The pain of guilt. The pain of want. The pain of... She looked away. She would not see need. She would not. Not. No. She could look away, she told herself. Jack would probably look away. He always spoke of choices, or rather Dave always spoke of Jack's choices. That he had chosen to trust her and thus to love her. Jack had spoken of her love as a miracle.... She had just fallen in love with him. Was that a miracle? So fast, so hard. How do you protect yourself from that? She supposed if he had never grinned at her that first day, if he....No, that was a lie. He was who he was and she was who she was and together they....matched. It did not matter if she was Laura or Irina, did it? After all weren't they the same person? Weren't they?

You could not ignore the truths inside. Or you did so at your own risk. Which might be an acceptable risk. But to do so at the risk of others....

A nearly fatal error.

Or perhaps the mistake had come earlier, that day of Dave's visit, when she had told herself that she wanted to cement their relationship, that Dave had been right, that her failure to pay attention could irrevocably harm their marriage, her mission. But the truth was... The truth was she had wanted to do it, correct her error once she had known it, because... Because she had loved him. Wanted to make him happy. Told herself that to make him happy would, once again, secure her mission. And had thereby managed to ignore the truth. Or rather, the truths. That she would be leaving one day. And if that was the case, then the greater kindness might have been to not bind them so tightly together.

She had walked slowly back into their bedroom and going over to the bureau, opened the box on top. The special box for her chain. She looked at it, smiled softly as she poked a forefinger within, dislodging the neat coil she had made the last time she had placed the chain within. If only she had...given to him the way he gave to her she might have known more, might have never had this conversation with Dave. The truth was... The truth was, she did owe Jack more. And if Dave were right and she gave Jack more, then she would receive more. Both of them would win. Yes, the best game, when both participants won.

Is that why.. She stopped, her fingertips clenching on the shard in her hand, careful not to cut herself. Is that one reason why Jack thought the game between a man and a woman was the ultimate game? Because both won? Yes. She groaned. Got up and faced the mirror.

Is that what he hoped to win with this battle he had waged this morning? He had been trying to get her to play the game between a man and a woman. The real Jack and the real Laura... Or was it the real Irina? Or... what was it he kept saying? Oh, yes, the real Whatever? Smartass, she thought, tapping the glass shard, large enough to see bits of her face in it, on the bureau top.

She had needed that squeak, that slam, that time sitting on the front porch with her husband as radios blared, as barbeques sizzled, as mothers yelled for fathers, as fathers yelled for children, that drift of hamburgers and hot dogs, petunias and roses, the touch of his hand, his arm, his lips as they sat next to each other on that glider and listened to it squeak long into the night. As he asked her to make a wish on a star, teased her about her inability to ask "What if?"

But... maybe Burns had been right. Maybe... For seeing the truth in the mirror that day had given her the desire, the determination to find a new path for herself, for Jack, for the two of them. And that path had given them both so much joy. And Sydney. She twisted the slice of mirror in her hand, watching it catch the light pouring in through the window. That choice had given them so much, had tapped into the potential... By changing, by thinking about, by feeling she had found...for them both...

Potential... What was it Jack had said earlier?  
"Go. Think about what the people you love deserve. What you need. Look in the mirror in the other room. Sit on that bed, look in the mirror. See yourself. Truly see what you are. See what you have become. Then see your own real potential. Make your decisions about who you want to be. I can't make your decisions for you. No one can. It's your choice."

Almost thirty years before, reluctantly looking in the mirror, seeing that horrible truth there, who she was in that mirror, had freed her. Freed her to find herself, find him, give to him, find joy, find the true connection, find freedom.

What, she wondered, what truth would she find in the mirror this time? If she had the courage to look up.

Staring down at her hands as she twirled the shard between them, she mumbled, "Out, out damn spot." Lady Macbeth. Is that what she had become? No, she knew as she looked up, it was far worse than Lady Macbeth. Far, far worse. Because the face looking back at her, the eyes, the deadened soul she saw in them, was that of...

Her gaze skittered away. Jack, damn him, had been right. He had seen the truth, because he knew his own fears of becoming his father. Had he, she took a shuddering breath and looked away, had he seen her other fear, the one she never acknowledged? That Dave had begun to see that day? She swallowed down her fear, put it away, knowing she would have to deal with it later. Maybe...

What if she told him? Would he help her?

But now, right now, she had to deal with the truth before her. Gathering her courage, telling herself that she had never lacked for courage, that she could do this, she looked back up into the reflection of her own face.

She looked into the mirror. Looked again. Watched her life, her choices roll before her. Wondered what Jack saw when he looked at her... Then she knew. He saw what she saw. She looked, unable to move, even though, once again, she would have given anything to look away, for the simple ability to look away from the truth.

But she could not. Would not. So, she looked in the mirror again, or rather, still. Allowed herself to feel. Shocked by what looked back at her. She saw a woman who was not happy. A woman who had lied to, stolen from, betrayed, framed and abandoned the man she loved. Whose daughter....She winced. Probably had no better an opinion of her than she had of her own mother. Why should she?

Too bad you didn't love her enough to stay.

She had abandoned Sydney just as her mother had dumped her at that school and never looked back except to see how she might use her. A woman who expected her husband and daughter to understand that it was just her job, the game. That their pain was acceptable collateral damage in the great game. She had been doing her....

...Best imitation of your own mother?

Jack's cutting words sliced through her and she dropped the mirror shard on the bureau top. Desperately she leaned forward, pressing her fingers to her cheekbones, desperate to see some other truth in her eyes, any other truth would do. Any other... But... No. No.

She let out a silent scream at what she saw before her. Then a hoarse, "NO!" escaped her lips.

Jack held onto the door jam with nerveless fingers, their tips turning white from the pressure he was exerting to hold himself back, to not rush toward her, hold her. Knowing from bitter experience that this was a journey she had to take herself. He could catch her when she reached her destination, but now... It was all up to her. Go ahead, he urged, his lips moving silently.

Now, she looked up at the mirror before her unseeingly, blinking rapidly to wash away the tears, seeing herself only dimly in the mirror. But perhaps, she thought, wiping her eyes, that dimness was a godsend. Then she blinked again and watched the decades roll away. Watch her face shatter as it had so long ago. Then as now, when she saw a horrible truth. Saw the truth in the face reflecting back at her endlessly in that mirror.

....mother

She shook her head, seeing the truth, now hearing it in her ears.

She was, had become....

Your best imitation of your own mother

Looking into that mirror, she heard Jack's voice. Not Dave's words. Jack's words as always flew like a heat-seeking missile straight to the point. "Your best imitation of your own mother...." Because that was what she was seeing in the mirror.

Her own mother.

"Noooo," she moaned.

Jack winced and put his hand on the doorframe to hold himself back. This was... this was worse than the time Sydney had broken her leg and he'd had to carry her for miles back to the car. This was... like the time Sydney had jumped off that roof, when the seconds had seemed to slow to hours, days, years as he waited for her to fall into his arms. But this time... he could only catch this woman if she wanted to be caught. This was torture, feeling someone on their descent, however necessary, to the bottom. It was the world's worst chase game, because she had to chase herself. He shook his head, bit his lip, held back. Knew from his own experience, the necessity of hitting that bottom before you could find your way back up.

But....

You can do whatever you want. Be whatever you want. But what do you want to be? It's your choice.

She looked in the mirror. Her mother. Who had left her at that school when she was a child of... six... Oh my god. Deep inside she had always resented her... Oh my god, is that what Sydney saw when she looked at her. Of course, that's what she saw. Of course, that's what Jack saw. Why hadn't she seen it herself? She pushed the hair out of her eyes once again and took a hard look in that mirror.

Felt the scales fall from her eyes. Heard the words from their wedding in her head. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

Fully known. Jack, Dave, probably even Sydney had seen her as a woman who betrayed. Who took trust and threw it away as if it were trash or worse yet, used it and then disposed of it. Because...

The full truth was, she took a deep breath, she had known about Jack's trust issues. She had... She shook her head, forced herself to meet her own eyes. She had. He had told her about his father. She had felt such a deep rage, a deep abiding rage at the damage caused. Told herself then that it had been merely that the abandonment made him that much more difficult to reach. Told herself the same when she had ensured that Jack got that little birthday present. But... the truth was, she had known. She wasn't sure when she had known. But by that night in the back garden, she had known. Thought it. Acted upon it.

She closed her eyes. The truth was....

"You really did know about Jack's trust issues."

The truth was... When she had let go, to help him let go, to find himself... She had known the truth. The night of the jewelry. She had known. Or rather, they had found truth together. Trust together. She sat down, ran through it rapidly in her mind, searching...Searching... Needing to see his face again, as he had knelt at her feet in their bedroom, encircled with his arms, his warmth, whispered, "Thank you." Then she hissed in a breath as she thought of that moment of truth in their back garden, when they had rested on that fulcrum of freedom and connection, with trust and truth holding them in perfect balance, as long as they were willing to let go.

"I've already told you everything you need to..." he trailed off, she knew, because he could not tell her a lie.

"Tell me. You can tell me anything." Then she had a thought, even as she bent her head and nibbled on him, smoothed her hands along his thighs, gripping the hardness of those muscles as well. She lifted her head slightly, just enough that she could speak, but her breath would still tease him as she spoke. "You will tell me everything. You have to tell me, remember? You have to do what I want. And what I want is to know this. What do you want most?" 
When he still hesitated, instinct told her to try a different tactic for a moment. The truth. So, she slid back up his body. Cupping his face between her hands, she whispered, "It's me, Laura. Your wife, who loves you. Tell me. What do you want most?"

He swallowed hard, shuddered as she saw something in his eyes, some...decision? she wondered, as he nodded and said very softly, "Freedom." ....

"Yes," he had said simply. Then made her heart melt, the way only he ever could or would, merely by lifting his mouth to her and waiting for her kiss. Seeing the love, the faith, the hope in his eyes, she was shaken. This was a huge responsibility, someone else's heart and happiness. No wonder, those hearts he had given her today had been on chains. The chains of trust, as he lifted his arms around her and opened his thighs as her legs slid between his legs. As she made love to him again, in a new way, this time for the first time, without hesitation, without worries, without fear of doing something...wrong, that she had not even realized until this moment had hampered her before. In giving him freedom, she had found her own. Another of those damn puzzles she could never solve.

"Honey, I'm...." he said brokenly, breaking out of the game. "I can't...I'm losing it...You've taken me too high and I am lost and I'm going to...."

"You're not losing it. You're finding it. Finding me, you, us. That connection. Take it, take it. I'm giving it to you."

She had known. She had known, thought it.

The chains of trust.

That night, which had been, in reality, so early in their marriage. Early in their adult lives. They had been so young. So young that night, although she wondered sometimes if either of them had grown up at all, the way they interacted sometimes, the way she acted with him, the way she felt with him, when they opened themselves to each other. Not like tonight, when she knew now, Jack had kept his deepest self closed except for a few moments when she had seen right into him. But that night that had come after the conversation with Dave that had opened her eyes, caused her to open her heart even more. And with that openness had come knowledge. That in order for Jack to achieve that freedom he wanted, needed so much, he had to trust her. That was why she had said, "It's me, Laura." That was why she had urged him to let go and find that connection, that paradox of love, that she had wanted more than anything to give him. He had needed to trust her in order to accept that gift. And he had, in arching his neck back, entangling them together, showing love and vulnerability, he had demonstrated his trust as they were lying together, those hearts on their chains entangling between them.

And that was what she had deliberately removed that morning she drove into the river. Her chain. That chain, what tied them together was more than love. Love was not enough. She had known that. Dave had certainly told her, but the truth was intuitively, perhaps unconsciously, she had known. Everything they had found had in fact flowed from that knowledge. That night of the jewelry had shown her. She had taken off the chain, that she had thought, was about love.

But at the base of love, surely, surely, no, especially in Jack's case, was trust. That decision to trust.

Trust came before love.

What if...

What if he trusted her again?

What if she...

What should she....

"What do you want me to do?" She asked, surely for the millionth time this morning.

"Look in the mirror. Decide who you are. Who you want to be. Your choice. I can't make your choices for you. Only you can make those choices."

Choices. She was so sick of hearing about choices.

Damn it!

Damn the truth. The truth that she had known. The truth that she had known, no one was so obtuse, that she would cause pain by her supposed death, then the truth. But she had locked that away like a child hiding under the covers, pretending that no one could see them, their shame, after committing, as little Sydney would have said, "a bad thing" with "repurcushions."

She closed her eyes, seeing Dave speak at the wedding.

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways...

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face...

She could not have given Jack freedom if she had not given him a reason to trust her. She had given him the reason with the knowledge she had, then had filed the truth, the trust away, like an inconvenient... Like the memory of Dave's relentless badgering to ferret out the truth. Like the chain in the box she had left behind, safe, she had thought, locked up on the dresser. But was any truth ever safely locked up? Or was it merely waiting for some Pandora to come along and send it flying out to do the maximum damage... or good?

But the truth was, she'd known. Then. Now. She'd always had the memory, or memories that told her the truth. She'd just chosen to ignore it because it did not fit into her game plan. A fatal error.

Worse yet, far worse than fatal, because it was a living death, was the fact that she had ignored her real needs, his real needs, Sydney's real needs because she not wanted, been too afraid to examine her unconscious... Wait. Did Jack know? Dave... That day he had sensed her game plan...

I think you did know on some level and chose, for some reason of your own that I truly cannot imagine, to ignore it.

But it was in those notes that he had hit upon the truth. Dave... She wanted to moan. I need you. I need... She bit her lip. Need.

Then she had needed to ignore the trust issue because she only then could she ignore the devastation her betrayal would cause. And now... She had chosen to ignore it, foolishly, because not only did it subvert her explicit game plan, it... She groaned, it put paid to her implicit agenda. That was what Jack had been doing when he'd pushed her to acknowledge that her desire to play the chase game after she had left, that she expected him to follow her had been unconscious. He was pointing out the errors, the fatal errors, one made when one's motives were unclear. He would know all about that. Madagascar. She still owed him for that.

But that was not the point here. The point was there was a fatal error in her game plan. Then. Now. A fatal error in her...life.

Her life which had taken the wrong turn. No, that was passive voice. She had chosen the wrong path. Had become precisely what she had hated most. Knew what Jack had seen. What she had seen.

Jack saw her mother in her face. A woman who... had betrayed his love, his trust, his faith. For what, for what....

Worse yet... what she saw in her face. She put her hand to her cheekbones, then her eyebrows, the slant of her jaw, the curve of her lower lip. Tucked her hair behind one ear, then shook it forward, trying to cover....

The truth.

In horror, continuing disbelief, she looked at the face staring back at her. Who... was... that? That woman looking back at her? That stranger? Who... was no stranger.

For we know only in part... For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face.

Who was that face? Who was that looking back at her? In a mirror that had suddenly become far too clear?

It was the face of her mother.

The woman she had become.

You can do whatever you want. Be whatever you want. Your choice. Make it.

She slammed her fist against the mirror again and again and again, harder and harder and harder. Finally, it shattered. 
In the tinkling shower of glass as it hit the wood top of the bureau, she heard every last illusion break.

Seeing herself, reflected in small pieces of shattered glass, an eye here, a corner of a lip there, a curve of an eyebrow, a dark tangle of hair here... Not a whole picture. Just pieces. Jagged, uneven pieces. She asked. Who was she? What had she become?

Or more importantly, what could she become?

She looked over and over at the fractured fragments of her face reflecting back into her eyes, over and over, in irregular patterns, with jagged edges, searching for herself. Bit back a sob, then let it escape. Another one, another one, another one, as she tried to fit the puzzle pieces together to create a whole picture.

Where was the woman who had looked back at a mirror so confidently, happily? Even with joy in her face. She gasped as she realized. That woman had always been looking in a mirror with Jack. Or Sydney. Or all of them. Her family. Her self.

In frustration, she swept the glass to the floor. Then stopped, realizing she had trapped herself within the pieces of shattered silver glass.

"Damn it!" She said aloud. "A mess. A horrible mess."

"Let go, Laura. Life is messy," Jack had said that night of the jewelry, when she had wanted to spend too much time inside their closet cleaning up. When he had wanted to be outside on that glider looking up at the stars, making a wish.

Inside the bathroom door, Jack hoped she had not cut her hand. He also hoped those shards were cutting through that veil of self delusion. Please, he whispered to himself, having heard her sob. Just take the next step. Just one more step in the right direction. But maybe... It was not helpful to sink to the bottom and mire there in self-destructiveness, as he knew. As he had learned in the aftermath of his breakdown and reinstatement, as he had wallowed in whoring himself until Dave had pulled him out, given him a good kick. He could do that for her. Hell, it might be enjoyable. And the truth was, he thought, as he heard a muffled sob, he couldn't take this any more. He just could not. He had to... He had to take one more step in her direction. Give her a little push. Or was it a pull?

"Irina."

The soft word, just the one word, jerked her to the present.

"Jack?" She looked up at him. Seeing the soft concern in his eyes, but with sharp watchfulness behind. Then the curious tilt of his head as he looked at her so carefully.

"Are you okay? Do you need help... Cleaning up this mess?" He asked slowly, cautiously as he motioned toward the deep pile of shattered silver glass on the floor around her.

"Nyet!" she burst out, trying to read his face, as her eyes hungrily drank him in, standing there, still nude, one hand on the wall. Offering to help, offering more than that... Or so she hoped. Was it merely wishful thinking? Or the truth? What was going on? Could he, she bit her lip, could he forgive her? How, how? She felt a prickle start at the back of her neck and with stinging nettles shoot throughout her body.